Two people were arrested on Sunday morning at the entrance to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, suspected of having attempted to damage classified property. The two people were arrested on Sunday around 11:30 a.m. and placed in police custody, as part of a preliminary investigation opened for “attempted destruction of cultural property during a meeting,” said the Paris prosecutor’s office.
According to our information, they wanted to spray the painting “Les Coquelicots” by Claude Monet.
Two men in police custody
The two individuals were “in possession of a white liquid, glue and a viscous whitish mixture, and were wearing flocked t-shirts Food response », an environmentalist movement, specifies a Source close to the matter.
According to our information, the defendants are two men, aged 32 and 23. They were spotted by plainclothes police officers wearing “Police” armbands outside the museum. The agents then entered the cultural enclosure to check them at the security gates.
It was during the palpation that they discovered a transparent sachet filled with white liquid. One of the two suspects also carried a “rolled up paper resembling a painting of red poppies” in his backpack.
People already known to the courts
According to this Source, these two people are “already known for previous acts of obstructing traffic”. “At this stage, the so-called membership of the movement Food response is not confirmed,” qualified the public prosecutor. The investigations are entrusted to the police station of the 14th arrondissement of the capital.
The Food Response movement (formerly Last Renovation) had made headlines in recent months, by spraying soup on the window in front of “The Mona Lisa” in January and then Claude Monet’s painting, Spring, in February at the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon.
This means of action has already been used in several museums around the world. In October 2022, two young women presenting themselves as ecological activists opposing any new oil project threw the contents of two cans of tomato soup onto one of the most famous paintings in the world, “The Sunflowers” by Van Gogh, exhibited at the National Gallery in London.
VIDEO – “The Sunflowers”, Van Gogh’s masterpiece, doused in tomato soup
Riposte Alimentaire activists, presenting themselves as a civil resistance collective founded in July 2022, also carry out symbolic actions outside museums. In February, they blocked Avenue de la Grande-Armée in Paris to protest against government cuts in the budget devoted to the thermal renovation of buildings.
